Last Updated on October 23, 2024 by Nathaniel Tower
Every writer from a best-selling author to a struggling amateur goes through the same issues when it comes to writing. You have self-doubt. You get writer’s block. You hate what you just wrote. You think you’ll never achieve your writing dreams.
The good news is, all of these things are temporary and fixable, provided you want to fix them. Here are 15 super simple and inspiring writing tips to help you get over the hump and become a better writer.
Whether you’re a best-selling author or a first-time writer, everyone starts with a blank page.
We all start from nothing. You might have a great idea for a short story, but an idea doesn’t make for a great piece of writing. You have to actually sit down and do the work.
Your first draft might suck, but it will always be better than nothing at all.
Don’t worry about how good your first draft is. It’s better to write something than nothing. You don’t need to be perfect on the first go of it.
If you don’t write, then you aren’t a writer. But you need to do more than just write in order to be a good writer.
To oversimplify things, writers write. If you write, then you are a writer. But simply putting words on paper doesn’t make you a good writer. You need to practice. You need to study the craft. You need to do more than just create something if you want to be great at it.
Correct grammar won’t make your writing, but bad grammar can break it.
You can have flawless grammar and still produce nothing worth reading. Great writing takes more than great grammar. However, it’s really hard to have great writing if the grammar isn’t flawless. In other words, grammar is important, but it’s not everything. The same goes for presentation—choosing the right fonts for your writing can enhance readability, but the content itself still has to hold value.
You don’t have to write every day.
It’s okay to take a break from writing. Sometimes you need time away from your craft. The best athletes in the world take some days off. You won’t lose it if you go a few days without using it.
Your writing will almost always be better if you make it shorter.
When you are drafting, you need to get all the ideas out. When you are revising, you need to be willing to cut out all of the unnecessary words and details. Making it longer rarely makes it better. Making it shorter almost always makes it more readable and more enjoyable.
If you have one standout sentence in a piece of writing, then you should probably get rid of it.
We’ve all heard about how important it is to kill our darlings. This is a real thing. You really should do it. Having one great sentence or line won’t make your writing amazing. If the rest of your writing doesn’t live up to that line, then it will be a disaster.
There’s no such thing as a universally true writing rule.
There are plenty of writing rules worth ignoring. To be a great writer, you have to know when to follow the rules and when to break them.
Use the words you need to tell the story. Yes, that includes adverbs and adjectives.
Every part of speech is important. Don’t mindlessly kill all your adverbs just because a famous writer said they were evil. And don’t forget how that famous writer used a shitload of adverbs in his bestselling novels.
When your writing gets rejected, that’s just an opportunity to get published somewhere else.
Rejection is not the end of the line for something you wrote. There are thousands of opportunities to get published. Don’t let a single rejection discourage you from getting published. Even a dozen or several dozen rejections is just a drop in the bucket.
No matter how good of an idea you have, someone else has already had that idea. That’s why how you write it is more important than what it is.
Writers are all thieves. Every idea has already been done. Just make sure your writing is better than what has come before it!
Listen to the feedback of others, especially if they offer constructive criticism. Anyone who says your writing is perfect probably didn’t read it.
We can all be better. Seek out feedback and listen when people give you sincere areas for improvement.
If someone gets upset about something you wrote, then you created something worthwhile.
Great writing should elicit some response. If no one feels anything about what you wrote, then it probably wasn’t great. Strive to create emotion when you write.
Writer’s block is only as real as you let it be.
Writer’s block is definitely a real thing, but that doesn’t mean you can’t beat it. Find your secret for overcoming writer’s block and become a champion.
If you try hard enough, you will be a published writer.
Once again, there are thousands of opportunities to become published. Work hard, don’t give up, and you will find success.
What are some simple writing tips you have to help inspire other writers? Share your tips in the comments, and don’t forget to share this post on all your favorite social channels.
You mention it in one of the links, but it goes as well here: read a lot. Read good writing. Read with a critical eye. Why did the writer choose that word or that sentence structure? Why did this point come up here in the narrative? How is the character being made more real? Read.
Paul, that’s a great tip. Funny enough, I recently read a list of writing tips that said “reading does not make you a better writer.” That tip infuriated me! I’ve never met a great writer who wasn’t also a voracious reader.